Macbeth Group

Question:

pito156
pito156
Student
High School - 12th Grade

What are the symbols in this passage from "Macbeth"? (Act V, scene 1)

LADY MACBETH: Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One- two -why then 'tis

time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and

afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our

power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have

had so much blood in him?

DOCTOR: Do you mark that?

LADY MACBETH: The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What,

will these hands neer be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more

o' that. You mar all with this starting.

DOCTOR: Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

GENTLEWOMAN: She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that.

Heaven knows what she has known.

LADY MACBETH: Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes

of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

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Posted by pito156 on Saturday May 17, 2008 at 10:30 AM and tagged with act v, macbeth, passage, symbols.

Answers:

  1. jay7star
    jay7star Student

    The "one, two--" refers to when she ran the bell twice to signal the coming of Duncan's death

    The "spot" is a blood spot and is a symbol of her subconscious guilt for the death of Duncan; of course the "spot" is all in her imagination; illusion vs. reality.  Lady Macbeth believes she is in "hell", again because of her guilt

    The Thane of Fife is Macduff

    The "soldier and afeard" is Macbeth

    When Lady Macbeth says "No more o' that my lord..." she is refering to the time when they were at the banquet right after the murder of Banquo

     

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    Posted by jay7star on Saturday May 17, 2008 at 2:25 PM

  2. pmiranda2857
    pmiranda2857 Teacher
    High School - 11th Grade

    The dominant symbol in this scene is blood, or the imagined blood that Lady Macbeth sees on her hands which represents the guilt that she feels over the murders, the blood that she refers to is Duncan's, "the old man".  But she is also stricken by the deaths of Banquo and especially that of Lady Macduff and her children, the most senseless and illogical of the murders that Macbeth commits.

    She is constantly washing her hands, trying to rid herself of the blood, but she cannot.  She also experiences the smell of blood, which she says all the perfume in Arabia cannot mask.  The blood, like the guilt, is permanent.

    She has descended into madness, dragged down by her conscience and her sense of overwhelming guilt.  She actually confesses to the murders when she sleepwalks and talks in front of her servant and the doctor.

    Her guilty conscience frees itself when the sub-conscious takes over during sleep.  Then, as the servant has said, she says all kinds of things that she should not say. 

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    Posted by pmiranda2857 on Saturday May 17, 2008 at 10:14 PM


  3. suman1983

    It should also be noted in this regard that the symbol constructed through the imagery of blood in this section is directly connected to the imagery of blood created in Act II, Sc. ii. The above commentator notes that the blood stains in Lady Macbeth’s hands are indelible like her guilt. But this also symbolises that like Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s mind is also wounded. The blood stain in her hand is nothing but “a false creation”. As Lady Macbeth has intentionally invoked the evil spirits, she has caused a fatal wound in her psyche. The imaginary blood stains in her hand symbolise this fatal wound. The doctor says “This disease is beyond my practice” and the readers understand “what's done cannot be / undone”.

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    Posted by suman1983 on Friday June 20, 2008 at 5:46 PM